Sen. Murray joins effort to bring World Cup to Seattle

U.S. Sen. Patty Murray announced today that she is joining 25 other U.S. senators in lobbying FIFA on behalf of the bid to bring the 2018 or 2022 World Cup the United States. And yes, Seattle is one the 18 proposed host cities.

In fact there’s even a web page devoted to Seattle’s role as a host city in the official U.S. bid, and a petition widget which I’ve temporarily added to the right sidebar. Sign the petition today!

Thank you so much for paying President Obama’s S-CHIP tax on mail order cigars for children’s health care! Please smoke another cigar or three, or if you’re not a veteran (I assume you’re not; what Republican is?) we’d have to bury at taxpayer expense, please smoke the whole box!

Ever try following through the links, or even reading the whole damn post before commenting? The U.S. bid calls for games to be played in 18 host cities. And the Seattle part of the bid calls for games to be played at Husky Stadium and Qwest Field.

Chuckles, let me expand on what Goldy is trying to explain to you. FIFA (soccer’s international governing body) is very keen on having the World Cup in the US for one very big reason: profitability. USA ’94 still holds the attendance record for the World Cup, and I’m pretty sure it’s still the only WC tournament that made its organizing committee a profit as well as FIFA, though Germany ’06 may also have been profitable for the locals as well.

Why, you ask? Well, the big key here is venues. As was mentioned, Seattle has two stadia capable of holding a regulation soccer pitch in Husky Stadium and the Big Phonebooth. Every major city in the US has a large stadium, and most stadia built in the last twenty years are designed to have a large enough surface to hold a regulation pitch. Many World Cup tournaments past (Japan/Korea ’02 being a prime example) have required massive public-works projects to being the tournament there. The most extravagant expense of USA ’94 was the installation of a temporary grass pitch in the Pontiac Silverdome, which had to be moved back outside as soon as each match was over.

It’s all about profit Chuckles, and there’s more of it to be made here than just about anywhere else. So expect the Big Phonebooth to hold a WC match or to in 2018 or 2022.

And try not to whine too much when it happens, willya? We’ll be trying to watch a game here, goddammit!

By the way, the wingnut hate talkers who call soccer a ‘socialist’ sport know nothing about sport whatsoever. The irony is that all the North American sports leagues are socialized to one extent or another (MLS being an extreme example) with collective bargaining, revenue-sharing and the like. Meanwhile, in ‘socialist’ Europe and South America, their football structure is rabidly, violently capitalist. And struggling badly with inflated debts. For example, all but four of the 18 teams in Spain’s Primera Liga are in varying degrees of danger of bankruptcy. Meanwhile, MLS is growing despite the bad economy, with ever-larger numbers in the stands, in the Nielsen ratings, and most importantly, the balance sheets. And it probably irks some on the Wrong that the Sounders turned a profit before they ever played a game, thanks to smart ownership and by far the league’s largest fanbase.

I would love to see the World Cup come to Seattle….with the caveat that we get some real adults in charge of Seattle/King County. With the current “leadership”, the Soccer rowdy’s would tear the town up for good.

This is not a simple task. It’s easy to get excited and over-enthusiastic. But calm down and start looking at the key facts. Transportation–Seattle SUCKS! Hotel Rooms—Seattle SUCKS! Police—Questionable Weather—SUCKS!

We have a lot of work to do to make this anything other that a dream. Sounds like a typical Patty Murray stunt to raise expectations on an issue that is a dream…but not practically viable for Seattle. Murray is trying to deflect attention away from her VOTING RECORD…the one Rossi needs to focus 100% of his atention on if he plans to win. It’s about VOTING RECORDS and RESULTS…not some wet dream about the World Cup.

PS– If they pulled it together, I would shell out the big bucks to go. I had Season Tickets for the Sounders in their heyday. I remember sitting in Frank Coluccio’s office one day in the mid-80’s, working with him on some projects. He went to his closet and there was this magnificient trophy from when the Sounders won the championship.

I asked Frank why it was in the closet. He said he did not want to be reminded of the $7 MILLION+ that thing cost him.

Installation of a temporary grass surface at Qwest Field is nothing new, and happens whenever Sounders FC hosts an international side for a friendly. That said, FIFA has approved the current generation of artificial surfaces for sanctioned matches, and one of the stadia hosting WC matches in South Africa (Rustenburg, I think) utilizes a ‘hybrid’ surface (artificial fibers helping to anchor the grass) similar to what is used at the new Mile High Stadium in Denver.

I’ll agree on both your points, Cyn. It’s a nice gesture to UW to include them on a potential WC list, but they’ll find a way to kill it. Qwest has better amenities for both players and fans, and has better access to I-5 and rail lines anyway. But I prefer to be optimistic on Seattle’s tranportation woes. Considering that the 2018 WC will likely go to the UK (technically England, but I’ll betcha they’ll find a way to put matches in the Millenium Stadium in Cardiff and either Ibrox or Celtic Park in Glsgow, and maybe even Murrayfield in Edinburgh), that gives the City twelve years to make the necessary fixes and upgrades for WC 2022.

Seeing as no one else has mentioned it yet, I figure I will clue you in on a bit of local history, Goldy.

You see, once upon a time, Seattle was in a great position to host the Olympics. We had the world games, and we were looked on favorably for it. Then the Seattle City Council sent in a letter to the Olympic committee requesting we be taken OFF the list. Why, may you ask? Well, in the words of Nick Lacata, then council member:

I was the first Councilmember to publicly raise questions about the impact of the Olympics on our city’s environment and budget. Who was going to pick up the bill? I convinced the Council that there were insufficient mitigations to protect our residents from the traffic congestion, housing shortages, liability exposures, and environmental impacts that would have resulted.

The council didn’t seem to realize that if we had gotten picked, most of these problems would have been fixed by the federal government. This is the reason why we are never considered for major events any more.

I like the idea of us getting to host the World Cup, but with a lot of the politicians still in place that caused us to pretty much never be considered again for the Olympics, I don’t see it happening.

I would disagree. Hosting a World cup match or two would require no sigificant investment by any branch or agency of government, other than deploying extra police to Pioneer Square and the SoDo area, probably no different than when the Seahawks play at home, or for New Year’s Eve. Though more security might be needed if a particular match featured historic rivals, or the English.

Cyn and I agree that a lot of work needs to be done improving transportation issues in Seattle, but we’ve most likely got twelve years to work on it. I’m not going to say that as US bid for WC 2022 is a shoo-in, but the only other bids for it are coming from Qatar and perhaps Australia. Australia is a building soccer nation like the US but more so, and who in their right mind would want to hold a WC in a desert nation during the height of summer, under Sharia law (read: no alcohol whatsoever!)? Let’s just say that certain big-money sponsors would probably be opposed to that.

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